Living in an online world

The Google users will tell you how insecure and intrusive Microsoft is and the Microsoft users will tell you the same things about Google. The fact is these companies need to make money, that’s why they exist. Every time an online service tries to charge for their services, an online signature petition is started to show that the move is unsupported by the users.

Wanting free online services is like wanting a free car. If you won’t pay for the car, then the manufacturer has to do things like monitor your behavior patterns and sell that information to advertisers who will then bombard you with information on products they think you need.

Then there is the case of sharing information with the authorities. The telephone companies do it all the time, but we don’t here conversations around whether a person chose or rejected Vodafone or Airtel because of the company’s policy on cooperating with the government, so why online services?

Because we like to think that the online world is anonymous and that we can do pretty much what we like without worrying about being tracked. Well, guess what? It doesn’t work like that.

No matter what online service you use, your habits are and will be tracked. If you want to avoid this intrusion, here are a two simple steps: